Welcome to the Department of Classics

The Department of Classics is home to the University’s first multicultural, interdisciplinary area studies program. Classics ranks among the most vibrant programs in humanistic studies at the University of Colorado, a department in which students at every level are challenged to integrate the world of scholarship into their daily lives.

We are multicultural, because we study the civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, but also the many peoples with which the Greeks and Romans interacted in central and eastern Europe, north Africa, Egypt, and the Middle East.

We are interdisciplinary because faculty and students in the department cross the boundaries of literature, philosophy, material culture, history, and religion to study the world of antiquity. We also cover area studies because of the historical broad sweep that our field encompasses of the Mediterranean basin and the regions that border it. The department offers courses in language and literature, ancient history, art and archaeology, and philosophy within several programs of study at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

With more than one hundred undergraduate majors and minors pursuing one of the several tracks offered within the department, ours is one of the most successful undergraduate programs in the nation. Our undergraduates claim their degrees with marketable skills that enable them to read critically, think analytically and communicate articulately.

Popular Pages

Did you know that a palimpsest is a text that has been erased and then written over? Using spectral imaging techniques scientist can sometimes read the original writing as in the case of the famous Archimedes Palimpsest, which contains, erased under a 13th century prayer book, works by Archimedes, a commentary on Aristotle, and parts of speeches from the fourth century BC. See www.archimedespalimpsest.org.